The Second Battle of NAFTA

If Canada and Mexico do not renegotiate NAFTA, said Hillary Clinton in the Cleveland debate, she would "opt out" of the trade treaty that was the legislative altarpiece of Bill Clinton's presidency. Barack agreed. NAFTA is renegotiated, or NAFTA is gone.

Barack went further. He has denounced "open trucking," the feature of NAFTA whereby Mexican trucks are to be free to roam the United States and compete with the Teamsters of Jim Hoffa's union, which just endorsed him.

The trade issue is back, big-time. For to blue-collar workers in industrial states like Ohio, NAFTA is a code word for betrayal—a sellout of them and their families to CEOs panting to move production out of the United States to cheap-labor countries like Mexico and China.

Our workers' instincts are backed up by stats. In 2007, the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico soared 16 percent to $73 billion, a record. Mexico now ships more cars to us now than we ship to the world. And where did Mexico get an auto industry?

The U.S. trade deficit with China shot up 10 percent to $256 billion, the largest trade deficit ever between any two countries.

In manufactures, the United States had a trade deficit of $499 billion in 2007, a slight improvement over the $526 billion record in 2006. Yet that trade deficit in manufactured goods with the world is more than twice as large as our $224 billion bill for OPEC's oil.

Under Bush, the U.S. trade deficit has doubled. Three million manufacturing jobs have vanished. And America has begun to run a trade deficit in advanced technology goods of more than $50 billion.

Our trade deficit in advanced technology goods with China is $67 billion, eight times what it is with Japan.

"Free trade is essential to the creation of high-paying quality jobs," said Bush on Thursday. But if exports create jobs (and they do), imports displace them. And if we import half a trillion dollars more in manufactures than we export, is not Bush trade policy literally slaughtering industrial jobs?

Is there not a correlation between $4.3 trillion in trade deficits under Bush, the 3 million manufacturing jobs lost under Bush, the fall of the dollar by 50 percent against the euro under Bush and the resurgence of inflation, signaled by a quadrupling of the price of gold, under Bush?

Neither Hillary nor Obama has laid out a new trade-and-tax policy to deal with the de-industrialization of America and our deepening dependency on foreign technology, manufactures and the loans to pay for them. But at least they are listening to the country.

John McCain seems blind and deaf to the crisis. In Michigan, he informed autoworkers their "jobs are not coming back" and explained his philosophy: "I'm a student of history. Every time the United States has become protectionist ... we've paid a very heavy price."

This is ahistorical nonsense. From 1860 to 1913, the United States was the most protectionist nation on earth and produced the most awesome growth of any nation in history. In 1860, the U.S. economy was half of Britain's; in 1913, more than twice Britain's.

In 1920, Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge won a landslide, cut income taxes from Wilson's 69 percent to 25 percent and doubled tariffs. America went on a tear. When Coolidge went home in 1929, the United States was producing 42 percent of the world's manufactured goods.

Alexander Hamilton and James Madison moved the Tariff Act of 1789 through Congress. Aided by Henry Clay, John Calhoun, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, President Madison enacted the Tariff of 1816 to protect U.S. infant industries from British dumping.

Abraham Lincoln used Morrill Tariff revenue to fight the Civil War. The 11 GOP presidents who followed, from 1865 to 1929, all protectionists, made America the greatest industrial power in history, with a standard of living never before seen. Mocking protectionism, McCain is repudiating Republican history and all its achievements up to the era of Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon.

America rose to power behind a Republican tariff wall. What has free trade wrought? Lost sovereignty. A sinking dollar. A hollowing out of U.S. manufacturing. Stagnant wages. Wives forced into the labor market to maintain the family income. Mass indebtedness to foreign nations, and a deepening dependency on foreign goods and borrowings to pay for them. We have sacrificed our country on the altar of this Moloch, the mythical Global Economy.

It took Rip Van Republican 20 years to wake up to the disaster of open borders and five years to realize the folly of igniting wars in which no vital interest was at risk.

How long before the GOP wakes up to the reality that globalism is not conservatism, never was, but is a pillar of Wilsonian liberalism, in whose vineyards our faux conservatives now daily labor.

If the energy chapter didn't matter -- why did all the American Presidents involved in negotiating the deals insist that it be there? As you point out; there's a world market for the stuff -- Canada or Mexico can sell it anywhere.

Once again -- a lot of electricity is being sold at less than market value. The U.S. was buying it, when the cost of oil or gas was a fifth what it is now -- so the cost of alternative means of generation has gone up.

I'm not the one suggesting tearing up NAFTA -- seems to me that U.S. Democrats, Canadian socialists, and you are pushing for that.

I'm not in favour of blackmail. The reality is that the NAFTA deal benefits all parties. If the U.S., wants to "renegotiate" parts of it -- then the whole shebang is on the table.

At best, a slim majority of Canadians support NAFTA; or are at least reasonably indifferent about it. Apparently, that's the same in the U.S. If the U.S. insists on sweeting the deal -- e.g. by protecting overpaid union workers in inefficient auto plants in Ohio -- then there's no way any Canadian government could leave the Energy Chapter intact.

We have a Conservative minority government holding onto power by dint of the PM's superior political skills. This government supports the U.S., it believes in free enterprise, and it supports free trade. If it left the Energy Chapter in NAFTA, while allowing protectionism for Ohio autoworkers -- we wouldn't have another Conservative government for several generations. The alternatives range from a mirror image of the Democrats -- to the far left. I wouldn't want to see them in power again -- and neither would you.

Our associate USFIV has presented logical and reasoned arguments regarding the stupidity of (Osama and Hillary)’s statements regarding NAFTA. All you’ve done is stick your fingers in your ears and shout LALALALALALALALALALA.

The sign of a genuinely GOOD negotiation is when NOBODY is fully happy with the final agreement.

A good debate requires more than one side to present facts, or it is nothing more intellectually stimulating and significant than a 6 year old saying “Is NOT!” when being taught something.

Oh, and when is California going to finally pay for the power sent from BC Hydro to there during their crisis? We could have kept the water behind the dams for our own use.

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